The pace of adoption of virtualized servers is incredibly rapid among organizations that are using virtualization, with 35% of servers purchased in 2007 being virtualized and 52% of those bought in 2008 expected to be so. 54% of those not using virtualization expect to do so in the next 18 months. Growth of virtualization as a strategy remains strong, rising from 46% of the base to 54%, according to IDC.
Total sales of thin clients in H1 2007 in the Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) reached 282,667 units, representing an increase of 37.3% over 2007, according to IDC. Revenue likewise increased 29.2% over H1 2007. The APEJ thin client market is expected to grow strongly over the next five years, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.4%.
Worldwide server shipments for Q1 2008 increased 7.6% over Q1 2007, while worldwide server revenue for the same period climbed 4.3%, according to Gartner. Worldwide server revenues totaled $13.6 bln for the quarter, as worldwide servers shipments reached just under 2.3 mln units. RISC-Itanium Unix servers fell in shipments but showed a small amount of growth in revenue. In this segment, shipments fell 8.4% while revenue grew 3.7% for the quarter.
Though IBM managed to retain the top spot in the calendar quarter, HP emerged as the top vendor in 2007 with strong growth of 12.3%, managing to eclipse IBM for the first time on an annual basis since the acquisition of Compaq. HP’s growth in Q4 2007 was strongest in the ProLiant and Integrity areas, with Integrity revenue, including its NonStop products, now accounting for 24.6% of the total vendor revenue. IBM benefited from a robust uptake of both its Unix System p and x86 System x families in the last quarter of the year. Fujitsu Siemens Computers enjoyed very positive Primergy performance in southern Europe and finished the full year with a 1.8% revenue growth. Sun Microsystems saw revenue grow strongly in the SPARC Enterprise area, and Dell had strong growth across all geographies, particularly in France and Spain.
| Vendor | Revenue, Q4 2006 | Share, Q4 2006 | Revenue, Q4 2007 | Share, Q4 2007 | Growth, YTY |
| IBM | $1,974 | 37.4% | $1,966 | 36.0% | -0.4% |
| Hewlett-Packard | $1,631 | 30.9% | $1,752 | 32.1% | 7.4% |
| Sun Microsystems | $554 | 10.5% | $586 | 10.7% | 5.7% |
| Dell | $380 | 7.2% | $425 | 7.8% | 11.9% |
| Fujitsu Siemens | $357 | 6.8% | $340 | 6.2% | -4.9% |
| Others | $378 | 7.1% | $394 | 7.2% | 4.3% |
| Total market | $5,274 | 100% | $5,463 | 100% | 3.5% |
| Source: IDC | |||||
Factory revenue in the worldwide server market grew 2.4% YTY to $15.7 bln in Q3 2007, marking the seventh consecutive quarter of positive growth, according to IDC. Worldwide server unit shipments grew 9.0% YTY in Q4 2007. For the full year 2007, worldwide server revenue grew 3.6% to $54.4 bln, while worldwide unit shipments grew 6.7% to 8.0 mln units. This represents the highest annual server revenue since the market peaked in 2000 with factory revenue of more than $61.6 bln.
Pingdom surveyed top 100 sites to find out 49 of them using Apache, 20 using Microsoft IIS, 4 using Lighttpd, 16 using some other Web server software, and 11 using an unknown server.
x86 servers saw their revenue market share grow from 45.9% in Q4 2006 to 49% in Q4 2007, according to IDC. Sales of Windows and Linux grew 12.8% and 8% respectively. While Unix performance remained strong, growing revenue by 3.1% annually, it is Windows that is now the clear market share leader with 35.7% or the total EMEA revenue. Both z/OS and i5/OS saw their revenue decrease by 9.1% and 3.9% respectively. Blades growth continued unabated with sales going up 55% annually and approaching the half-billion dollar mark. Pedestal servers are the single most important segment with 50.2% of the total revenue in Q4 2007, despite negative annual revenue growth.
| Vendor | Revenue, 2006 | Share, 2006 | Revenue, 2007 | Share, 2007 | Growth, YTY |
| Hewlett-Packard | $5,412 | 32% | $6,078 | 34% | 12.3% |
| IBM | $5,604 | 33.1% | $5,580 | 31.2% | -0.4% |
| Sun Microsystems | $1,985 | 11.7% | $2,092 | 11.7% | 5.4% |
| Dell | $1,309 | 7.7% | $1,508 | 8.4% | 15.3% |
| Fujitsu Siemens | $1,261 | 7.2% | $1,283 | 7.5% | 1.8% |
| Others | $1,342 | 7.9% | $1,323 | 7.4% | -1.5% |
| Total market | $16,912 | 100% | $17,863 | 100% | 5.6% |
| Source: IDC, 2008 | |||||
Server factory revenue grew by 3.6% in annual comparison, to $5.46 bln, while shipments rose 7.3%, to more than 750,000, in Q4 2007 over Q4 2006 in EMEA, according to IDC. For the whole of 2007, market growth was robust, with factory revenue rising 5.6% annually, to reach $17.86 bln, and shipments growing 8.9% to over 2.6 mln. Multicore, virtualization, and blades are all contributing to the strong uptake of volume servers, which are gaining favor with SMB and enterprise customers alike, a market trend translated into a factory revenue share of 49.6% of the total in EMEA in Q4 2007 and a growth of 6.5% annually.
IBM held onto its #1 spot in the worldwide server systems market with 36.7% market share in factory revenue for Q4 2007, growing factory revenue by 0.5% YTY, according to IDC. HP maintained the #2 spot with 27.7% share for the quarter, growing revenue 6.3% compared to Q4 2006. Dell and Sun ended the quarter in a statistical tie for third place with factory revenue market share of 10.1% and 9.3% respectively. Dell experienced 6.8% revenue growth compared with Q4 2006, while Sun experienced a YTY revenue decline of 2.4% in Q4 2007. Fujitsu-Siemens, experienced a 7.1% increase in factory revenue holding 4.3% revenue share in Q4 2007. HP maintained the #1 spot in the server blade market in 4Q07 with 47.7% revenue share. IBM finished second with 32.5% revenue share.
| Vendor | Q4 2007 Revenue | Q4 2007 Share | Q4 2006 Revenue | Q4 2006 Share | Growth, YTY |
| IBM | $5,752 | 36.7% | $5,724 | 37.5% | 0.5% |
| Hewlett-Packard | $4,337 | 27.7% | $4,081 | 26.7% | 6.3% |
| Dell | $1,580 | 10.1% | $1,480 | 9.7% | 6.8% |
| Sun | $1,457 | 9.3% | $1,493 | 9.8% | -2.4% |
| Fujitsu Siemens | $666 | 4.3% | $ 622 | 4.1% | 7.1% |
| Other | $1,860 | 11.9% | $1,875 | 12.3% | -0.8% |
| Total | $15,653 | 100.0% | $15,275 | 100.0% | 2.5% |
| Source: IDC | |||||
The x86 server market continued to grow in Q4 2007, increasing 7.6% in the quarter to $7.8 bln in worldwide revenues, according to IDC. Unit shipment growth also accelerated, growing a healthy 10.3% YTY to 2.1 mln servers as customers continued to refresh and expand their IT infrastructures. For the full year 2007, worldwide x86 server revenue grew 10.4% to $28.7 bln, while worldwide x86 unit shipments grew 8.3% to 7.6 mln units. HP outpaced the market in Q4 2007, growing factory revenue 12.0% and gaining x86 market share in the process. HP led the market with 35.0% revenue share while IBM and Dell tied for second place with each vendor securing about 20% revenue share.
| Vendor | 2007 Revenue | 2007 Share | 2006 Revenue | 2006 Share | Revenue growth, YTY |
| IBM | $17,336 | 31.9% | $17,154 | 32.7% | 1.1% |
| HP | $15,415 | 28.3% | $14,255 | 27.1% | 8.1% |
| Dell | $ 6,145 | 11.3% | $5,467 | 10.4% | 12.4% |
| Sun | $ 5,861 | 10.8% | $5,749 | 10.9% | 1.9% |
| Fujitsu | $ 2,676 | 4.9% | $2,691 | 5.1% | -0.5% |
| Other | $ 6,988 | 12.8% | $7,209 | 13.7% | -3.1% |
| Total | $54,421 | 100.0% | $52,525 | 100.0% | 3.6% |
| Source: IDC | |||||
Microsoft Windows servers showed positive growth as revenues grew 6.9% and unit shipments grew 9.8% YTY, according to IDC. Quarterly revenue of $5.7 bln for Microsoft Windows servers set an all-time high for a single quarter and represented the single largest revenue segment in the server market with 36.6% of overall quarterly factory revenue. Unix servers experienced 1.5% revenue growth YTY when compared with Q4 2006. Worldwide Unix revenues were $5.2 bln for the quarter, representing 33.3% of quarterly server spending and reflecting continued IT investment in this server market segment, with particular strength in the midrange enterprise segment of the Unix market which comprises 53.8% of all Unix spending. Linux server revenue reached $2.0 bln for the first time in any single quarter on 11.6% YTY growth. Linux servers now represent 12.7% of all server revenue, up more than 1 point over Q4 2006.
Growth in the server blade market accelerated in the Q4 2007, with factory revenue gaining 54.2% YTY and shipments increasing by 35.6% compared to Q4 2006, according to IDC. Overall, bladed servers, including x86, EPIC and RISC blades, accounted for $1.2 bln in Q4 2007, representing 7.8% of quarterly server market revenue. More than 95% of all blade revenue is driven by x86 systems where blades now represent 14.8% of all x86 server revenue. For the full year 2007, worldwide blade server revenue grew 40.9% year over year to $3.9 bln.
The market for high performance computing (HPC) servers grew 15.5% in 2007 to reach a record $11.6 bln, according to IDC. IDC reported that the HPC server market resumed strong double-digit growth in 2007 after dipping to 9.2% growth in 2006 – the first single-digit increase since 2002.
Over the five-year period from 2002 to 2007, the HPC server market has grown an aggregate 134% at an average annual compounded rate (CAGR) of 18.8%. IDC projects that this market will reach $15 bln by 2011. The 2007 $11.6 bln revenue total split out by HPC server price bands as follows. The supercomputers segment for HPC servers priced above $500,000 grew 24% YTY to reach $3.2 bln in 2007. The divisional segment for HPC servers in the $250,000-$499,999 price range increased 19% over 2006 to $1.7 bln. The departmental segment for HPC systems priced from $100,000 to $249,999 grew 23% from the prior year to reach $4.1 bln. The workgroup segment for sub-$100,000 HPC servers declined slightly (3.3%) to 2007 revenue of $2.7 bln.
In 2007, worldwide server revenue grew 3.8% for a total of more than $54.8 bln. Overall, vendors shipped more than 8.8 mln systems in 2007, an increase of 7.4% compared with the 8.2 mln servers that were shipped in 2006, Gartner said.
NetCraft published the list of top Web server developers in December 2007.
| Developer | November 2007 | Share | December 2007 | Percent | Share |
| Apache | 76,028,287 | 50.76% | 76,945,640 | 49.57% | -1.19 |
| Microsoft | 53,679,916 | 35.84% | 55,509,223 | 35.76% | -0.08 |
| 7,910,879 | 5.28% | 8,558,256 | 5.51% | 0.23 | |
| lighttpd | 1,505,122 | 1.00% | 1,521,250 | 0.98% | -0.02 |
| Sun | 619,262 | 0.41% | 588,997 | 0.38% | -0.03 |
Source: Netcraft
NetCraft published their findings on Web server market between September 2000 and December 2007. Y-axis represent the number of server installations.
Source: Netcraft
Forrester Research predicts that home servers will reach 4.5 mln households by 2012. That’s up from just 190,000 such servers in 2006.
Factory revenue in the worldwide server market grew 0.5% in Q3 2007 to $13.1 bln. It’s the slowest rate since Q1 2006, according to IDC. Server unit shipments rose 6.3%, a decrease from 7.8% growth reported in Q3 2006. IBM had 30% of the server market in Q3 2007, down from 33% a year earlier. Hewlett-Packard held 28.6% of the market, up from 26.1% in 2006. Dell was third, and Sun Microsystems came in fourth, the same as in 2006.
Unix server shipments fell 6.4% to 103,267 units. Sun led the pack, shipping 52,038 units, 12% down YTY, Gartner says. IBM shipped 27,904 units to come in 2nd place, representing a 12.9% drop in volume. 3rd was HP, which saw a 29.4% increase in shipments. Apple, in fourth place, shipped 4,098 units, a 33.4% increase. Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens was in fifth place.
Worldwide server shipments in Q2 2007 were up 2.7% over Q2 2006 for a total of just over 2 mln units, according to Gartner. Server revenue was up 5.1% to $13 bln.
The server blade market showed continued growth in the quarter, with factory revenue gaining 18.2% YTY and shipments increasing by 16.9% compared to Q4 2005. Overall, bladed servers, including x86, EPIC and RISC blades, accounted for $788 mln in Q4, representing 5.2% of quarterly server market revenue. HP moved into the number 1 spot in the server blade market in Q4 2006 with 41.9% revenue share and IBM finished with 37.0% revenue share. For the full year 2006, worldwide blade server revenue grew 29.8% YTY and IBM continued to hold the #1 position with 40.0% followed by HP with 37.4% revenue share.
Growth in the x86 server market accelerated slightly in Q4 2006, growing 7.0% in the quarter to $7.2 bln worldwide, its fastest growth rate in five quarters. However, unit shipment growth continued to moderate, growing a modest 1.1% YTY to 1.85 mln servers as customers continued to consolidate their IT infrastructures. IBM, HP and Sun were the only top 5 server vendors to outgrow the market in Q4 2006 ? growing factory revenue 7.8%, 8.2% and 85.8% respectively ? and gaining x86 market share in the process. HP led the market with 33.9% revenue share and IBM and Dell tied for second place with each vendor securing 20% revenue share. For the full year 2006, worldwide x86 server revenue grew 5.2% to $25.8 bln, while worldwide x86 unit shipments grew 7.4% to 6.9 mln units.
